Looking Back Lemons

The flight has been delayed another 30 minutes. Outside, the clouds are more like thick winter comforters than summer throw blankets. Renee Luke looks at the clock. She thinks there might be just enough time to get a meal in before she has to give the next update to the passengers. Behind the desk she squeezes a fresh lemon over her chicken piccata. The capers swim in small wading pools of butter atop the perfectly browned chicken. Renee’s nose is tingling. She looks around anxiously. Eating in public makes her nervous. Like a ripple effect, a few heads and noses move instinctively in her direction; a redhead next to her wrinkles up her nose, rubbing it aggressively with her sleeve, as if that will rid of the smell. 

Fabuloso?

Marguerite Carroll smells the Embassy Suites. She recalls the fresh linen and the constant bickering with her amicable but irritating co-worker Mandy Flores. She thinks of the long elevator rides home; living in the hotel made work-home separation impossible, and she felt like she was drowning.

Mandy stumbles over the nearly full bottle of Fabuloso on the thinly carpeted floor. Her spotless white sketchers are hit with a wave of cleaner, and it quickly coats the trail of wires coming from the side of the TV.

“Shitshitshitshitshit,” Marguerite catapults herself across the room, towel in hand, mostly stopping the liquid before it travels to the lamp cords. She rubs the carpet ferociously, back and forth and back and forth, until she sees the pattern blurring ever-so-slightly—that’s her cue to stop. She wipes beads of sweat off of her forehead and temples, looking up at the ceiling as if to ask for divine intervention. That’s when Mandy’s hand slips off of her mouth and she lets out a shrill giggle.

It reeks strongly of sweet, chemically enhanced lemon in the room as the two women with their bulky cart. Marguerite is taking her lunch break when she hears the squeaky footsteps of Boris Waters behind her. 

“A woman in room 504 is complaining of migraine due to strong chemical smells,” Boris starts, raising his eyebrow at Marguerite. “Do you know anything about this?”

She swallows the tortilla chip a little too quickly, and it cuts her throat when it goes down. She coughs loudly. “Some cleaner was spilled, but it was nothing dangerous.”

“We can’t have people leaving this place with migraines,” Boris went on, “and you and Flores have a record of being careless like this. I’m going to let you and Flores have some time off…” There goes her chance at promotion. And weeks of counting pennies and eating rice and beans, placing IOU notes in her landlord’s mailbox. Please, please, just one more week…

She feels her fists clench and thigh muscles tighten in response to the memory. She scrunches up her nose, shaking herself from this flashback. She looks over to see the front desk worker munching away on her lunch. She is grounded with reality again. She’s not working for the Embassy Suites anymore. And today she’s flying on a plane for the first time in her life, at age 52. She smiles. 

Limoncello?

Matteo Olivera smells his first alcoholic beverage. He tries not to smile like a fool in the airport, where strangers can see him and assume he might be thinking about something perverted. 

Uncle Marocchini grins and slides a tiny silver cup across the table to him. Matteo’s mom frowns in disproval. Matteo is only 16, but the relatives don’t mind. In fact, they're all watching with amusement as he inspects the beverage he’s been given.

The liquid is bitter, sickeningly sweet, and revolting, all at the same time. Matteo forces himself to swallow the whole amount in one swig. His mom gasps at this, her hand flying to her chest, while his uncle cheers loudly, clapping. 

His smile fades when the deep hum of the rain outside becomes more of a shrill pouring. He’s on the way to Michigan, and summers in Venice are a thing of the past.

Luna Bars?

Jay Marquez smells Melinda Ivy.

He can almost feel the creamy, icing-like texture of the bottom layer of the bar on his tongue as the smell fills up his nostrils. He can taste the sugary, crispy oats and zesty, crunchy bites if he zones out the crying children and rolling wheels of suitcases around him. 

Melinda slips another Lemon Luna Bar under the door of Jay’s apartment. He doesn't notice it until 2am, when he’s sock-footed in his rusty old kitchen, pouring himself another cup of black coffee and rubbing his temples with his sore wrists. There it is, the familiar bright rectangle. In the midst of all the 30 page papers and case assignments, frantically trying to keep up so that he can participate in class, it’s the one thing he looks forward to. But today, there is a small note on the snack.

It reads: I’m pregnant.

Jay panics. He picks up the snack bar and stares at it for a solid minute, reading 2 words as many times as 2 words can possibly be read in 1 minute. Then he tears the note off, flushes it down the toilet, and throws the bar out the window into the road. The next morning, he manages to convince himself it was never there. As he does the next day, and the next day, and the next…

Jay shakes his head and wonders if he should just leave the airport now. Melinda hates him. Why would his 6 year old daughter, who has never seen him before in her life, feel any differently? He has a fiancé now and shouldn't dig up his past. He gathers his things and runs into the pouring ran before he can change his mind.

Lemon water?

Fia Oaks smells meal replacements and her high school’s hallways. Fia buries her chin in her backpack to try to absorb its comforting smell so that she can shake the memory. But it’s too strong.

She’s 16 years old and an Army Brat. She sits in the back of a rowdy classroom holding a worn, plastic water bottle with a yellow smiley face on it. In her backpack, she has a metal container full of lemons and a bottle of apple cider vinegar. She feels silly when she pours her ingredients into the water bottle and shakes it up in the bathroom stall before 1st period. She also feels a little bit cool, like she’s working on some kind of self improvement project that’s going to make her hotter than everyone else. The first sip of the odd concoction is always the worst; the bitterness everything but consumes Fia’s insides as she puckers her lips and grabs the fat on her leg to remind herself of what she’s working towards.

“Can I get a bathroom pass?” Fia blurts out during the math lesson.

Mrs. Hillhouse is tired of Fia’s requests. “No. Wait until break.”

Fia feels a wave of nausea hit her, as if she has just gone upside down on a rollercoaster. She doubles over in pain and vomits into her purse. 

Her fingers fly to her teeth. The enamel still isn’t right. She runs to the bathroom and hopes she won’t miss the flight.

Sweet tea?

Keely smells summers in Pass Christian, Mississippi with her grandmother, who was really like more of a mom to her. She feels her face get warm with emotion and contemplates which is more full with liquid, the thick clouds outside or her heavy, nostalgic eyes.

The pitcher is filled to the brim. Nanna is so petite that she can barely manage to tote the homemade sweet tea to where Keely sits on the cushioned porch swing. Her hand is shaking just a bit as she pours a generous amount of tea into Keely’s glass. She slides a lemon wedge onto the rim with ease. The first sip is like jumping into the pool on a scalding hot day; the citrusy, tangy liquid hits Keely’s tongue and lingers a while. She never wants to let it fizz out. But Nanna sets a warm plate with a thick slice of homemade apple pie down in front of Keely. The apples are freshly picked and oozing with cinnamon sugar, and the crust is as soft and flaky as a fresh pastry. A scoop of creamy vanilla bean ice cream rests on top, trickling down the sides and pooling in the crevices of the plate that Keely made for Nanna in 2008. It cuts the sharp taste of the lemon just right.

Keely is 28 now. She’s still working as a travel nurse and heading down to Biloxi for 3 months. She’s renting out her Nanna’s old house to live in. She’s backed out 3 times already, worrying that she won’t be able to handle sitting on the front porch alone.

Lemon tree?

Ibrahim Shakir smells the lemon tree in his backyard in San Jose. He looks down at his printed-out ticket, and the corners of his lips turn up slightly. That tree never led to anything but trouble. 

Henry Dang has the idea of building a catapult and shooting jawbreaker candies out of Ibrahim’s bedroom window. Henry’s dad owns a candy store in San Francisco, and he has access to a ready supply of oversized jawbreakers. They’re in 7th grade and out of school for the summer. They manage to construct a contraption that shoots any object smaller than a baseball. They knock 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 lemons out of the tree and one makes it into their bucket they placed on the ground. One, though, travels a little too far and they hear a loud crash. Henry and Ibrahim share a horrified glance. They hide in Henry's room all day, but nothing seems to come of the mistake. At dinner that night, they anxiously pick at their noodles.

"So Mayor McEnery's Audi apparently got hit by a baseball today," Henry's dad marveled.

"I knew Bobby Moore was up to no good," Henry's mom commented, referencing the 6th grader who played travel team baseball and had gotten in trouble for graffiti in the school cafeteria once.

Henry and Ibrahim suppressed a giggle.

At least the memory was something to distract him from the stress of being “randomly chosen” by the TSA earlier. He sighs and thinks of his father, who always told him not to "make a scene" or fight back when these accusations were made. He wonders how much easier it would have been if he looked like Bobby Moore.

It seems as if the plane is now nearly ready to take off. Renee Luke scarfs down the rest of her food and tugs on the microphone by her collar. She jams the top back on the tupperware and hastily wipes the remainder of the chicken piccata from her mouth and chin. She tosses the lemon in the trash can haphazardly. She has no idea that the smell has monopolized the thoughts of the passengers of the flight.

“Ladies and gents, we should be on our way to Detroit in just 30 short minutes…”